Candlelight
by ncfan
Summary: Celebrían, learning Quenya.


I own nothing.

* * *

The guttering candle is burning low. Celebrían's eyes are keen, so it matters little, but the dancing shadows are a bit irritating—she'd be a liar if she tried to say that they weren't. Nonetheless, she is not tired this night, and the weather is too warm to necessitate lighting a fire in the grate. She wants to keep reading.

In particular, Celebrían is reading some old documents, penned either by her mother or by certain of her maternal uncles in the early days of the Noldor's settling into Beleriand, before Thingol leveled his ban on Quenya. This is not some secretive, skulking affair. In fact, her mother _wants _her to read them, to see how much of it she can understand. They've been doing this for the past few months.

It's important to Galadriel that her daughter learns to understand, to speak, to read and write in Quenya. It's important to Celebrían, as well.

Galadriel first made this wish of hers known a month after Celebrían came of age. _"You are my daughter; you are a Noldo. It is time you learned the language of the Noldor, as it is spoken in Aman." _Since then, two months ago, she has tasked her hard, giving her lessons in the language every day, when her duties as one of the co-rulers of the Nenuial settlement allow her time to teach her daughter Quenya. For the most part, she has just been teaching her vocabulary, with a bit of noun declension and verb conjugation thrown into the mix. It's been slow, tedious work; out of all the lessons Celebrían learned as a child, foreign languages was never one of them. But it is important to her.

"_I do not expect you to understand much of these documents. You've really not progressed far enough for that; there hasn't been enough time. But I will be interested in hearing what you do understand of them tomorrow morning."_

Indeed, Celebrían does not understand much. All she can really decipher is that these documents are geographical surveys, or accounts of how much grain will need to be produced to feed the population, or, on occasion, personal letters.

"_A heavily wooded area…"_

"_Having some trouble with the locals…"_

"_I miss you so; when can we meet again?"_

Celebrían wishes she knew her uncles' voices, from time to time. She wishes she knew what they sounded like, sometimes, so that she could put a voice to their names and the accounts of them. This is one of those times. Celebrían feels as though she is grasping at their essence, at their identities and their personalities, but without a voice it's all flat and nebulous, like grasping at smoke. Secondhand accounts of what Finrod, Angrod, Aegnor and Orodreth were like can only take her so far.

In a way, that's what it feels like for her entire culture. Without any knowledge of Quenya, she is only grasping at the edges of knowing her mother's people. She knows Noldor in Ennor, certainly, but will she ever _know _them, if she can not speak the language that has made up their culture for so long?

And what's more, if Celebrían had been born in Doriath, she might not have learned Quenya at all. From what she understands, while there weren't many in wide Beleriand who observed Thingol's ban to the letter, Thingol himself was very strict in his enforcement of it within Doriath's borders. Celebrían would likely have grown up a very sheltered Sindarin princess, with little to no connection to her mother's kin. The language barrier would have been only the most glaring separation from the Noldor in Beleriand. She would be fluent in a language that came second to them, and have absolutely no knowledge of their mother-tongue.

Nimloth her cousin would not have spoken it, and somehow, that gives Celebrían some solace, knowing that at least one of her cousins would not be able to speak Quenya any more than she would have. She wonders, honestly, if Finduilas could speak Quenya. Finduilas was born in Ennor, and brought up in Nargothrond. Finrod was supposed to have observed the ban very closely, out of respect for Thingol, or at least out of deference to his authority. Would Finduilas have learned her father's language at all?

Celebrían imagines the gap that must have arisen between Finduilas and Orodreth if the former was not even permitted to _learn _Quenya, and she thinks she understands why her mother wants her to learn Quenya. She thinks she understands why her mother has insisted on her having such a traditionally Noldorin upbringing. It's so that same gap won't exist. It's so they'll understand one another. Maybe there's more to it than that. No, considering that this is her mother she's thinking about, there _has _to be more to it than that.

But maybe her mother wants an ally here. There are some Noldor in the Nenuial settlement, Celebrimbor for one. But there aren't many Noldor here, and many of those who _are _here do not seem eager to recognize Galadriel's authority, do not seem eager to accept her. They would sooner accept Celeborn's sole authority, despite him being a Sinda and not one of their own people, than they would accept Galadriel and Celeborn's joint authority, and the only reason they accept the latter is because they don't have much of a choice.

Celebrimbor does not appear to have much influence outside the forges. He certainly does not take an active role in the leadership of the settlement outside of the forges and running the local smiths' guild. He actively avoids it, surrounded as he is by Sindar and Nandor and Silvan-folk. Celebrían starts to get the impression that it is perhaps on account of his ancestry that he avoids leadership, and wonders how he would be in a settlement populated entirely by Noldor.

It would perhaps be different for her, if there were other Noldor here her own age, but there are not. All of the very few children she grew up with are of pure Sindarin or Nandorin descent. They call her a Sinda, ignoring entirely her mother's blood in favor of her father's. She becomes simply her father's child in their eyes, as though Galadriel does not exist, or as though she did not pass down any of her blood to her child.

In the face of that, Celebrían rebels. She is a Sinda through her father, but she is also a Noldo through her mother. She is a Noldo, the inheritor of a long, rich culture full of grief and passion and discovery. The culture of the Sindar is full of song, and full also of grief and passion and hope, but it is simply not the same. Celebrían looks to her mother, and seeks to stand beside her.

She can not really be her mother's ally unless she understands her mother's people. That starts with the language. So here she is, reading over documents she can barely understand, by candlelight.

Celebrían rests her forehead in the palm of her hand. She's come to an account of the lands of Dorthonion, penned by Aegnor and written to Finrod, which has quickly turned into a personal letter. _"You should see it yourself…" "…a great, open land…" "…Will you come visit us soon?"_

Without their voices, it's just a flat document; Celebrían could be reading a letter from anyone to their brother. That's all it is, a letter from an Edhel to his brother, something that she has no right to read, that is too private to be seen by her eyes, even when she does not understand much. But she tells herself that when she learns the language, when she has mastery in it and it flows from her lips like water off a waterfall, she will be a little closer to all of them.

Her knowledge is like the flickering candle, weak and limited. But it will grow into a fire, something strong, and it will sustain her through the empty places in her life.

* * *

Ennor—Middle-Earth (Sindarin)  
Edhel—Elf (plural: Edhil) (Sindarin)


End file.
